The Lost Boy's Book of Dreams
by RoseForEverAfter
Summary: Neal and Emma cross the city limits into Tallahassee on the back of a lot of dreams, a lot of love, and the belief that just this once things might just go their way. But sometimes the unexpected happens, and sometimes life has it's way of surprising you.
1. We sang every song that driver knew

Tallahassee, it turns out, is landlocked, and the closest beach an hour's drive away.

Emma really doesn't mind. All she feels is the security of the box of cash they got for the watches, safely tucked into an envelope in her duffel bag. the gentle pressure of Neal's hand on her thigh, her wrist, her waist, seemingly unable to stop touching her in some way, and the serene, bubbling joy of the thought that just this once, things might just go their way.

The luxury of being able to eat hot food again is one they have both looked forward. There's a truck stop diner on the interstate outside of town, and they stop for a long lunch.

It's cramped and the booths are sticky, and the decor incredibly tacky, but the food is the best Emma has ever had. She can't remember the last time she had a piece of fried chicken, three of them even, much less potatoes and vegetables and a whole biscuit to herself.

Their waitress is a dark haired woman in her fifties whose clipped on name tag on the front of her ridiculously orange uniform reads "Dottie". She's kind and attentive, and the three strike up a conversation about where they're headed.

"We got married a few months ago, and we finally got the money to move out of my father's house" Neal explains.

"Any particular reason to pick Florida? Cause a lot of folks don't seem to expect the swamp or the bugs so they hit up Disneyland and take back off"

"It was kind of a flight of fancy" Emma continues "we thought we'd just let fate guide us or something" it does sound pretty stupid right now, but Dottie doesn't seem to think it odd.

They'd both been almost overwhelmed at the menu. Too many months of stolen candy and sandwiches spiced up with pocketed condiments from a variety of restaurants, occasionally broken up the odd value menu hamburgers or day old cookies

Neal teases her for ordering hot chocolate with whipped cream but she doesn't care. The creamy sweetness, and Neal's laugh, warm her from head to toe.

They splurge on dessert, even though Dottie cocks her eyebrow when Neal asks if they have pumpkin pie.

"It's March darlin', we just got apple and peach"

Emma rolls her eyes "Excuse my husband, he was dropped on his head as a baby. We'll have the peach".

Neal's eyes twinkle even as he pouts at her insult, and it keeps up after the waitress returns with their pie.

"What?" Emma asks, stuffing a bite into her mouth. Oh, sweet, juicy sugared peaches, mana from heaven...

"It's just you seem very comfortable calling me your husband now. I thought it was just a good cover"

Emma blushes over her pie. That particular lie, that had come so easily during cons- very rarely did people question a newlywed couple traveling by car- now seemed so incredibly real. Dangerously so.

She distracts him by stealing a bite of his pie. Let them cross that bridge when they come to it.

Neal leaves a generous tip. Emma makes a point to thank Dottie, remembering her own short stint as a server back in Maine, and the woman presses an extra slice of pie in a to go box on them, wishing them luck.

They cross the city limits at 6:25 that evening. Emma writes the time and date down on a yellow notepad that had been left on the diner booth seat. She's never been the kind to keep a journal, but she thinks that now, when her real life is about to begin, that she'll want to remember the important things.

March 29, 6:25 PM.

It's warm, unexpectedly so for spring, especially to Emma, a lifelong survivor of frigid Maine. Warm enough that they decide to spend their last night in the Bug, parked near a playground. They make love with both the windows rolled down, and after, Emma stretches her bare feet out the door into the night air.

Neal is laid out underneath her, one finger playing with her hair. They're both still mostly naked, but Emma pulled a blanket over them just in case anyone came by.

"Give me that notepad you had" Neal says.

When Emma reaches under the front seat armrest for it she remarks "You better not be making a list of all the places we've done it".

He laughs "But it will such a more fun list now that it'll have more places than the back seat or the front seat"

Emma giggles too "There's the hood- don't forget the hood"

"Or that alley in Tuscon"

"Or that picnic table"

"The park bench was fun"

"Don't forget the ground"

"You liked the ground"

She snorts "I did"

"Cause you weren't the one with bugs crawling up your butt the whole time"

She swats him with the notepad before handing it to him

"If you'd remembered to grab the blanket you wouldn't have had that problem."

She takes off her glasses and tucks them in the glove box before curling back up on Neal's chest.

"Write whatever you want but I'm going to sleep. We'll start apartment hunting tomorrow."

"Too bad it looks like the beach is out of the question now"

"Maybe we can find a place with a pool at least"

And as Emma sleeps, Neal sketches. Emma's feet still stick out the window, accompanied by a perfectly placed palm tree, accompanied by the stars coming out into the deep midnight blue of the night sky.

There are a lot of stars here, more than Neal could usually see in the city. More than he's seen since...

No, he's not going to think about that, not tonight.

The lines flow out from the pen almost with Neal's control it seems. The scene before him, this girl he loves,

sleeping content, reproduced on the lined yellow paper.

More pictures fill the page after he's done. Ridiculous things he knows. Smaller than the first, but dancing around it tantalizingly. A little house, by the ocean. A Christmas tree next to a huge roaring fireplace. A Christmas tree surrounded by a gaggle of faceless children.

Even now, with a chance at a whole new life ahead of him, he knows that these things are just dreams.

He writing the name he has taken in this land at the top of the page. After a moment, he adds Emma's too. Then, seized by compulsion, a title of sorts.

Book of Dreams.

Gently, so as not to wake Emma, Neal returns the pad to the passenger side's floor. He settles back against the door, cushioned by the cheap blankets they've accumulated, and lets himself fall asleep.


	2. She's lookin for that home I hope she'll

The apartment they find isn't amazing- it's pretty cramped, shares a wall with a neighbor with at least four small noisy dogs and has hideous shag carpeting. But it's clean, and quiet, and came at a very reasonable rate with a kind landlady who looked at the two of them with the gaze of a doting relative. Compared to the rat hole Emma lived when she first was on her own, it's downright liveable.

And there is a public pool, a few blocks away.

Emma buys a drugstore camera the day they move their meager possessions in. The apartment came with a small wire framed bed and mattress and an especially ugly (but extremely comfortable) couch. Between those, and the mess of things that have been living in the trunk of the bug it's already begun to look more like a home. The picture she snaps of their bedroom just before sunset, when the big window that usually just showed the corner of another building became filled with golden sunlight that flowed in onto the soft flowered comforter she'd rescued from a dumpster, is clipped to the second page of the notepad that Neal's taken to carrying around.

And if Neal sees her tape the picture in, he doesn't say anything. Possibly because she grabs him by the arm and drags him into the apartment's shower even thought it's not even dark outside yet.

"We don't NEED to share the shower anymore, but we CAN" she says, and she strips him and turns the water on hot.

The water stays hot fairly long, and the two scrub the grease and dirt of the street from their bodies, let those days run straight down the drain.

If it goes lukewarm as Neal has her bent over, arms around her belly and mouth on her neck, Emma doesn't notice a bit.

After, when Neal's toweling himself off, and complaining to Emma about how he smells like her cheap apple blossom shampoo now, he asks

"Hungry?"

Emma's stomach growls, even as her brain starts to drift, they ate their pie this morning, and now it's close to dusk

"Already?".

"Always" she says bitterly. She wonders if this is going to be a thing. Getting used to eating regularly again.

They have a small fridge and stove, but no kitchen table or chairs. That first night they sit in the middle of the floor eating straight from containers of Chinese takeout from the restaurant down the street. This lead's to a problem Emma hadn't really foreseen.

"Uh...can you cook?" she asks over a bite of noodles.

"Sort of" Neal says slowly. But even that answer seems to be uncertain.

And the truth itself seems to be more complicated than it should. Emma discovers the next morning when he goes down to the corner store and attempts to cook them both eggs.

The smoke takes almost an hour to completely dissipate, and the landlady almost calls the fire department on them.

Emma doesn't quite understand- Neal had seemed perfectly fine stirring the eggs and pouring them into the pan, but when it came to controlling the stove's heat it seemed as though he had never seen the appliance before!

Later she heats them up soup for dinner. They mostly stick to take out after that.

The bed that came with the apartment is a double, with an aging mattress that's a little lumpy, but clean. It's more than twice the space they're used to sharing in the car, even when they push the front seats forward.

And while Emma still sleeps curled on her back, Neal it turns out is fond on splaying out on his stomach, face first into the pillow.

The third day, when Emma slips out early to go get breakfast, Neal awakens almost immediately, already used to the feel of her body beside him. After a moment's worry, he slides over into the middle of the bed to try to go back to sleep.

He wakes up again when Emma returns with a box of pastries, snapping a picture of him face down into her pillows.

"That's one for the book" she says, setting the camera aside, and climbing back into bed.

She's still wearing the shorts and shirt she sleeps in, apparently having just slid her shoes on to walk to the store.

Taking a bite out of her bear claw, she pulls out a piece of paper and a pen.

"What is that" Neal asks, leaning over her shoulder and grabbing a cheese danish out of the pink cardboard box.

"The market down the street needs a cashier" she says, downcast.

"Do you want to work there?" Neal asks cautiously. Emma's never really discussed what kind of work she would want to do.

She bites her lip. "I was a waitress back in Maine. Always got stuck with the sucky shifts, and people are horrible to you. I hated it. But it's a job they'll give anyone, even someone with my record."

"Wasn't that the job that you left after emptying the register and catching the bus out to Portland?" he does remember her talking about this vaguely when the topics of how they ended up on the road came up before.

She laughs. "They have no proof I did that, so many of the other girls couldn't close the register right, the counts were always off, drove the manager nuts. There was barely enough there that night for my ticket, they could blame it on human error easy. Besides, that was over a year ago, right after I turned 17. I'm 18 now, that and the rest of the stuff will matter less and less as time goes by. I could even get them sealed away if I wanted to." She taps the pen after writing her full name in the space.

Neal blinks "So I guess it's just me who's going to have to get a new identity?"

She looks at him, thinking. "Yeah...if you're going to get a job especially. Those wanted posters had your name and picture, date of birth, everything, use your social security number, and they'll all come right up".

"I don't have a social security number" Neal admits "or a birth certificate, shot records, anything. The birthday and middle name on my ID are made up. I didn't take anything with me when I ran away. The guy at the jewelry store paid me under the table."

Emma has one of her hand's curled up in his hair.

"You're a true man of mystery. Too bad you let them get your picture, otherwise you could always insist it wasn't you. If he didn't have records there would be no way to prove you were that Neal Cassidy."

She tosses the paper and pen off onto the floor, and slides her hips over Neal's lap, pinning his shoulders to the bed.

"Forget getting a job. I'll just keep you as a house slave instead. What do you think? Spend your days cleaning and servicing me sexually"

Taking his cue from her playfulness to stick with the change of subject, Neal grins wickedly, sliding the fingers of one hand under the waistband of her shorts

Even through their mirth, a shadow has been cast over Neal's mind. Emma's plan for moving here and leaving their past's behind had seemed so easy. He didn't know how to admit that he really didn't know where to get a new identity. A new driver's license maybe, but there was so much more to a life in this world. Papers, documents, records of everything. And this isn't exactly the kind of thing that he could go down to the corner store and ask "hey anyone know where I can buy a new life, one crime free?". He'd have to do some digging. There was always someone around willing to buy anything he had, and people who weren't that choosey often knew others who were even less scrupulous.

Later in the week, he takes the day to explore his options. Emma's gone out in search of shoes to wear to her interview. She has a dress that she says should do, but that going in her tights and Doc Martens might send the wrong message.

"No one wants to see the real you in a job interview, they just want to see that you can kiss ass properly and answer their questions exactly the right way."

So, Neal's day follows the paths of the neighborhood's pawn shops, junk shops and vague questions given in the neighborhood dives. Disappointingly, it seems that Tallahassee is extremely upright. He truly doesn't really have much experience in seeking out others of the criminal persuasion. Marcus Weller, the kid who'd gotten him his fake driver's license, had just been one more of the lost and wayward teens at the group home. The six foot five, chain smoking Marcus had been surprisingly soft spoken for his mile long rap sheet. But he'd been a fountain of useful information and connections, ranging from where to get beer without getting carded, to how to slip out of handcuffs. Which may have been the reason that the last time Neal had seen him he'd been making a mad dash for the Canadian border.

Though, while Neal could definitely use a Marcus Weller right now, the day's journey is not entirely unfruitful. By the time he gets home that evening, he has scrounged from various places; a folded up card table and chairs, a microwave with a few sauce stains, and a slightly broken, beat up dresser.

None of them the best, but they'll all do.

Emma shows back up right as he finishes dragging up the dresser into their bedroom and is emptying the last box of their stuff. She's muttering something about heels being torture devices designed by the patriarchy to keep women weak, but she's holding a bag, so Neal guesses she found what she was looking for.

"Hey" he says, "Found a couple of things shopping today. There's just this box left stuff left from the trunk"

Emma tosses her bag on the counter, and grabs the box from him.

Said box is their meager collection of personal possessions. Emma has a pile of tapes and CDs, and a couple of books (she favors true crime and thrillers). Neal's things take up less than 1/3 of the box. From looking at his things, one would think he had sprung up into the world a fully grown adult.

He had some books of his own, more than Emma. She'd teased him to death when she'd found the box in the trunk. Fat, old books written more than fifty years ago. Books she'd only seen in libraries and schools. And she pretended to fall asleep whenever he tried to read to her from any of them, even though she secretly enjoyed it. Especially the one he'd  
said he'd been named for.

He pulls out the dreamcatcher from that day in the motel.

"Can always use some flypaper for nightmares" Emma remarks and she takes it and hangs it in the kitchen window.

Neal doesn't tell her that he hasn't had a single nightmare since they've moved in.

The last thing in the box is a fluffy blob that Neal initially mistakes for a car towel until Emma snatches it away, turning slightly red.

"What?"

Emma's clutching the blob, Neal can see now that it's a soft knitted blanket.

"This is the blanket they found me in when I was a baby" she says, eyes gazing at the floor.

"You kept it all these years?" Neal asks, quietly. He knows that Emma doesn't like talking about her past. She's hardly ever mentioned her parents, wherever they are now.

She nods. "It's the only thing I have from my birth parents. I spent so many years wondering. They abandoned me, left me by the side of the road like a piece of trash. Didn't even take me to a hospital where I would be safe. No sign that they loved me at all. But they, or someone they knew, gave me this handmade blanket that has my freaking name sewn into it. It was the only thing that kept me going sometimes. Awful foster home to awful foster home. It was something, anything, that was meant for me alone, even if I didn't know why."

She's near tears now. Neal reaches out and takes her wrists.

"Find a safe place for it. This place is our home, and all of you is part of it. Even the bad parts".

Their faces are so close together that Emma can feel his breath.

"I love you, know that right?"

A smile finally quirks its way back onto Emma's face.

"You damn well better"

The blanket lays, almost forgotten, on the table as the two embrace. Emma has a fleeting thought, of another small, wriggling, creature wrapped up in it, being held by her and the man currently running his lips down her neck.

But it's a thought that she lets drift off, like an early morning dream.


	3. Feelin good was good enough for me

By the day her interview comes, Emma is so nervous that she actually throws up. Her throat still burns as she sits in the hard plastic chair outside of the store manager's office sweating through the nylon of her godforsaken pantyhose. She can't believe she's actually wearing hose.

But she manages to smile prettily and maintain good eye contact, and answer all the middle aged pornstache'd manager's inane questions with perfectly bland responses. She is rewarded with a polyester blue vest, a cheap plastic name tag, and an order to start her training the next day at 8am.

She doesn't understand why it makes her so proud. The first coworker she meets is a gumcracking sixteen year old with huge hoop earrings and her eyes constantly glued to her pager. But she is proud of herself, nonetheless.

She celebrates by bring a plastic tray of cupcakes home from the store. Her employee discount is pretty sweet.

Neal congratulates her by making her hot chocolate just the way she likes it. After eating the frosting off hers, Emma dunks the cake part into her chocolate. Crumbs swirl in the mug.

"We're both going to get incredibly fat" Emma mumbles, mouth stuff full of cake.

"After too long nearly starving I would love to get fat" Neal replies, reaching for another cupcake.

"There's just one catch" Emma says, taking another swig of hot chocolate. "It's only part time. They said you have to have a high school diploma to be full time. As if it takes a ton of brains to scan barcodes and make change."

"I thought you were done with school?"

"I was studying to get my GED when they processed my emancipation. I never finished. They practically kicked me out when I turned seventeen. I guess they realized that if I had to stay much longer and I was just going to cut out and run away again."

"I can help you study"

Emma snorts, but really, Neal probably had read more books than she ever had. The boxes pulled from the car's trunk could attest to that. And he read the sort of things they made kids in school read, for fun at that!

As long as the test doesn't involve how to turn on a stove, she'll do fine.

"It'll be really nice not to be a drop out anymore too. People look at you like you've failed as a human being somehow if you tell them you dropped out of high school. Like a few more years of knowing about stupid hard math and old dead white men means anything".

And that is the truth.

She regrets the cupcakes later that night when her nerves get the best of her and she throws up again. She knows she really shouldn't be nervous. It's not as though she hasn't done job training or met new people before.

Maybe it's because for once this all feels real. Like all those platitudes drawled by well meaning guidance counselors about the real world were actually coming true. A job. A chance to finally earn her GED. A home. Things that Emma spent so many years certain that she would never have.

Training goes the next few days just as she expected. Computer lessons of rules and policies. Register training (nothing she hasn't already done), and criticism from supervisors on her "manner" with people. She should smile more they say.

Her coworkers, at first blurred together, start to separate. The gumcracking teen becomes "Steffie", her portly mustachio'd manager "Terry". And the older woman who takes Emma under her wing at register 6, is "Judy".

Judy's been working at "Antonio's Grocery" for 20 years. Her disdain for both customers and management is obvious. Emma loves her right off the bat.

By the time she gets her first paycheck, Emma's wearing her blue vest, punching numbers and scanning barcodes like a pro. She's rehearsed her small talk and friendly smile to perfection. She know knows the store's layout, most of the produce codes, and the specials every week.

The money isn't much, but it's nice to have some coming in. The watch money won't last them forever.

Work is as good as it supposed to be.

And Emma wishes she didn't hate every minute of it so much.

She loathes every customer who complains about the lines. Every customer who lets their children run wild. Every stupid little inconsiderate thing that just proves to her that most people don't regard her as a person.

The extreme couponers are the absolute worst though.

A soccer mom is giving her hell one Friday afternoon over a two for one yogurt when Emma finally bursts and lets out with "Ma'am if you're going to get this mad over 75 cents you could at least read the coupon before yelling at me, or is "not valid on other brands" too complicated for you?"

It's hugely satisfying, and it earns giggles from both Judy at the register behind her, and the pimple faced kid bagging her lane, but it puts Emma on eggshells. It's only been two months, she could be fired easily if word reached management. It's not like there aren't a million other places to work for minimum wage out there, but it's another black mark on her record, and one that would stick this time.

And the market is so close to the apartment. Neal needs the car during the day to look for work. If there is one thing they could not afford, it would be a second car. Emma's already starting to eye her bank account balance with a nervous eye every time she pays the electric bill.

So it's with her stomach uneasy and her mind racing that she returns home. But when she opens the front door she's hit with an unexpected, and unexpectedly wonderful aroma.

"Good timing, the garlic bread's ready!" Neal exclaims while lifting a pan from the oven and setting it on the counter. Next to it is a pot of spaghetti, still steaming.

"Did you know noodles are like a dollar for a whole box? And you only need a little to make a whole pot"

Emma opens her mouth, but no sound comes out at first. When she finally regains the ability to speak, "..manage not to set the place on fire this time?"

Neal takes the pot holders off and sets them on the counter. "Is that anyway to greet someone who just made you dinner after a long day?" he says with mock offense.

He reaches out to embrace her before muttering "Still don't like the stove. Open flame's a lot easier to control".

Emma laughs "yeah, I learned on a gas stove too. So what made you decide to become Mr Gourmet all of a sudden?"

Neal rubs the back of his neck self consciously before reaching for a pair of plates.

"It's just...with you at work all day, I've been feeling kind of useless. Thought I could do something productive, and cooking's a lot cheaper than eating take out all the time".

The spaghetti is delicious, and the garlic bread equally so.

"You didn't make this from scratch did you?" Emma asks, stuffing a bite into her mouth.

"Nahh, but jarred sauce is good and ground beef is easy to brown. Went to the library and got some books of ideas to try, Thought I'd start easy."

She snorts. "Only you would spend a day off at the library"

"Some of us like to better ourselves through knowledge" he says, pointing the end of his fork at her accusingly.

"Still no look with the job search?" she asks sympathetically.

He drops the jovial attitude for a moment "Still nothing. Even the crummy fast food jobs want documentation. If this goes on much longer I'm going to end up looking for day labor gigs. There's got to be some around here. Lots of lawns..."

Emma can tell he's getting a little embarrassed, so she doesn't push. She takes her last bite of spaghetti, and picks up the plates to wash in the sink.

"But, I did give myself a job today" he adds, getting up and reaching onto one of the empty kitchen chairs. Emma pauses, suspicious of his mischievous tone.

He pulls out a thick softcover book, emblazoned with a picture of a perkily dressed dark skinned girl with glasses holding a stack of notebooks and the title "Ace the GED".

Emma lets out a groan. "Seriously?"

"You said you wanted to do it, and I am going to help you."

She rolls her eyes and whines her way through the exercise, but she is rue to admit, that it probably does help. Neal's a better teacher than she's ever had, far more patient. And if she wants to become full time at the market, she has to pass this test. If she wants that.

She doesn't tell Neal about the encounter with the woman at the market. She's on edge for a week waiting for it come up, but it never does.

The days start to fall into a comfortable rhythm. Emma takes on as many shifts as she can. The teenage cashiers are happy for a break, and she's happy for the cash. She bites her tongue and watches the clock and bides her time.

Home is better. Home is a fucking haven. Even with Neal pushing the books at her and fretting whenever she brings up the topic of work.

But despite the worries, even Neal seems happier than she's seen him before. The apartment is always clean when she gets home. His experiments with food are becoming more and more successful (except for the incident with the turkey helper). He has a brightness to his eyes that she's hardly seen, along with his wild grin. He's affectionate, and positive. He looks at her sometimes like she's hung the moon. It's almost too much for her sometimes.

(One night following homemade tacos and him eating her out on the couch while watching TV, she's begun to understand how the patriarchy could have become so attached the housewife thing).

She sets the date to take her GED, it's early on a Saturday and apparently takes three hours. If she passes, Terry says they have a full time spot opening up because one of the closing cashiers is moving home to Ohio after finishing school. She'll take it. One more step to permanence. One more thing that will steady this comfortable little existence they have.

That little dark undercurrent is still there. The worries about money. The fear of mouthing off again and losing her job. And the inescapable fear in Emma's head that this is all too good to be true. That the next minute something is going to go wrong and he's going to leave.

This darkness comes to ahead one night in May when Emma is cleaning her lane before clocking out and Suzy the college aged bag girl asks her to help with the basket of go backs.

Suzy's a jaded smart ass of two years employment, so this ends up being them ripping on the stuff people would leave but still buy

Emma really starts it up when she remembers the grizzled old jerk with the flag shorts who had tried to hit on every underage employee he could find

"Who needs deodorant when it'll cut into your wine budget?"

Suzy matches her with the soccer mom who had been actively lighting up in line despite their protests.

"And these bags of salad could be two whole packs of cigarettes!"

It's when she goes to put back a box of tampons that a light fires through Emma's mind. Suzy snaps her fingers by her head.

"Hey, earth to Emma. Unless you want to be locked in tonight, we should go now"

But she's transfixed, the pin in her mind has dropped at the sight of the neat display.

Fuck.

Fucking FUCK.


End file.
